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Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Cautiously Optimistic

Once in a while, Rizal Technological
University’s Astronomy Society (RTU-AstroSoc) holds community outreaches to
spread awareness about the wonders of astronomy to the people. Students leave
the confines of their classrooms to the wilderness that is the public and speak
to those who want to listen.

There
is every reason to believe that community outreaches work. The objective is
noble, the topics interesting, the people engaging—Every activity is rooted to
the good will of sharing the beauty of astronomy to the world, no matter no
matter if that part is big or small. To the success of each outreach, I laud
RTU-AstroSoc and the DESS family in general for their support and dedication…

…And
yet.

There
is, of course, only so much that the students can do. To the sheltered
Filipino, astronomy is something completely different; students taking a
Bachelor’s degree in an astronomy-centered field are of sheer novelty. And
while the exact intention of an outreach is spreading the awareness and
presence of a very much active astronomy student community to the people, it is
not unimaginable that even with all the efforts placed on every event
everything is just not quite enough. But maybe this is being rather cynical of
me.

And
so, a cautious sort of optimism settles. There is, after all, so much left to
see; there are still so many people to reach and talk to, for the sake of
letting astronomy become more well-known and welcomed into quiet communities
and curious people. If the curiosity is willing to be pleased, there are
students who are more than ready to please.

--Anonymous

Song for the Stars

Eric
Idle once sang a song: The Galaxy Song, in The Meaning of Life. The tune is
catchy enough, like “Pop goes the weasel!” However, true to the comedy troupe’s
inclination to the absurd, the scene where Idle sang the Galaxy Song tended to
the obscene (no joke: beware!), and said absolutely nothing about the meaning
of life (unless one is inclined to think about it, and maybe with a few mental
flips in the process, something might come from analyzing the song). Suffice to
say, the song became a quick favorite: even Stephen Hawking gave the song a
shot, and sang it. The factual tidbits spilled in Galaxy Song are inaccurate by
present times, though.

Astronomy-inspired
music is rather rare. People did songs about stars, of course (Javert,
anyone?), the Sun, Jupiter… But they are laced with romantic sentiments to make
them more human, to let the audience truly connect to the hyperbole of the
emotions expressed by the song. Talking about the magnificence of the cosmos,
serenading the stars by judging their brilliance and declaring them to be
something of importance, teasing the beginning of everything by way of melody,
unbarred by romance— Now, those are exceptional indeed.

In
here, it would not be unusual to beg to differ: The cynic said that not
everyone, of course, has the same tastes and preferences in music. That is
true, but the scant amount of musical work dedicated to space itself, to
everything that astronomy encompasses and holds dear, still stands to the
point.

Why
the fervor for music that describes the cosmos? For the same reason we compose
arias, ballads, sonatas, and all the other forms of music that ever graced
humanity’s ears: Sentiment. Only this time, awe soars high and topples romance
from its seat in the heavens.

--Anonymous

Are we alone in the universe?

Our body is made up of Hydrogen, Carbon, and
Oxygen. So does the Earth -The sun, our solar system, and the universe. We can
technically argue that we are part of the universe and the universe is in fact
living inside us.

The universe started from singularity. A
single point, born out of the remnants of interstellar dust and rocks,
collapsed by gravity, shaped by heat, and then expanded towards the unknown.
The Big Bang as we call it. If we could visualise it, everything came from one
single point. The single point from which we were all created from. There are
trillions of stars out there. Billions of planetary systems like ours, and
thousands of Earth-like planets. All we have to do is explore the galaxy and
find by all means, another system that works in parallel like ours.

Moreover, our bodies contain DNA. An element
which is connected to our very first ancestors. We can say that we’ve touched
all of our ancestors with our DNA. The idea of being a part of a whole is what
makes us individuals special. We are different from each other, yet we came
from the same spectacle.

The thought of presuming that there is life
out there fuels our drive to just wonder what miracles life has yet to offer.
Because we are not alone, we never were, and we never will be.

Sunday, October 9, 2016

These were
the words that came from one of the attendees, Margie Palacios, as her fellow
Astronomy team went to National Planetarium in Manila, 7th of October 2016.

If you were
to stand in front of National Planetarium, you’d hear this exact same line
coming in from different points. Along with her is a faculty member, Mr. Jerome
Felicidario, and her fellow classmates, C'jackquel Danauto, James Basit, and
Mika Denise Samson.

Huge, grand
edifice showed off their priced exhibits as a welcoming remark for the incoming
guests. That’s miniature models of space-satellites, to retrieved tektites,
embossed illustrations of our planets and deep-space nebulas, and facts and
illustrations of our sky’s constellations we’re shown as well. As part of the
planetarium’s celebration, lectures we’re conducted.

Mr. Paul
Arce, along with his fellow colleague Jomar Razo, discussed the sorts of danger
that is usually found in space. Furthermore, Mr. Miguel Artificio discussed the
main ethics of astrophotography.

It was
attended by students from College of Manila, Rizal Technological University,
and individuals coming in taking part of the activity. However, due to the gloomy
weather, the said to be astrophotography training was cancelled. The event
wrapped up by 5:00pm in the afternoon.

On
celebration of the annual World Space Week, BS Astronomy students together with
RTU-Astronomy Society host exhibits and lectures tackling astronomy and space.
Held at the Astronomy Center, October 6.

Event
started off with a public solar observation to allow students and staff alike
to get a glimpse of our very own star, the Sun. It didn’t start off that well due
to the weather condition. After waiting
for an hour or so, the clouds parted for the Sun allowing us to view it in all
its blazing glory.

Next
was a lecture led by a graduate of BS Astronomy and is now a part-time
professor in RTU, Mr. Jerome Felicidario. He talked about about junk,
specifically Space Junk and its consequences. If you have watched the movie,
Wall-E, notice how Earth is surrounded by a graveyard of satellites? Those are
called space junk and we have thousands of de-commissioned satellites orbiting
our planet at this moment.

Moreover,
Astronomy students prepared exhibits—ranging from a scaled model of the solar
system as well as a model of the International Space Station. There are
exhibits as well that makes use of simple physics and maybe a little
light-bending; this includes dancing lights, thermodynamic floating cups and
glowing cups.

Also,
the Manila Planetarium situated a mobile planetarium at Astronomy
room two, students was able to see the beauty of the night sky without actually
going out.